Effect of Lignocellulosic Materials on the Properties of Thermoplastic Polymer/Wood Composites

Abstract

Summary The effect of lignocellulosic materials on the board performance of thermoplastic polymer/wood composites was examined by using soft wood flours of 20 mesh- and 120 mesh-pass, steam-exploded beech flour, and two kinds of thermoplastic polymers, polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene. Steam-exploded wood flour was found to be one of the best lignocellulosic materials in terms of fracture strength and water resistance of the composite board. The properties of the composites are dependent not only on the lignocellulosic materials and polymers, but also on the average size of wood flour. Generally, a flour of 120 mesh pass gave composites of better performance than that of 20 mesh pass, but the tendency was reversed when steam-exploded beech flour was used.

A review of wood thermal pretreatments to improve wood composite properties

“…The presence of coupling agents was responsible for better wood-polymer interaction. Similar results have been observed by Takatani et al (2000a), who produced WPCs using steam-exploded beechwood flour of different particle sizes with poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and polystyrene (PSt). WPCs boards manufactured from steam-exploded beech had better mechanical properties and reduced water absorption (WA) than boards with unextracted material.…”

Wood/polymer/nanoclay composites, environmentally friendly sustainable technology: A review

“…The surface treatment resulted in little benefit in strength at 10 wt.% fiber content, and at higher fiber contents a reduction in mechanical strength was observed. Takatani et al (2000) explored the effect of lignocellulosic materials on the flour (mesh 20 and 120) as well as newspaper flour and steam-exploded beech flour. The composites were prepared via a solution method followed by compression molding.…”

Effect of industrial wood particle size on mechanical properties of wood-polyvinyl chloride composites

“…Recycled PVC waste from pipes, windows and sidings can be successfully used to produce wood-PVC composites. Mechanical properties of WPCs with PVC as the matrix have seldom been studied (Bledzki et al 1998;Takatani et al 2000;Xu et al 2008) compared to WPCs with PP and HDPE. The effect of wood or natural fibre content was mainly considered.…”

“…The effect of wood or natural fibre content was mainly considered. Only Takatani et al (2000) evaluated the effect of wood particle size for WPCs with softwood flour and steam exploded beech flour using two sizes of wood particle: 0.125 and 0.841 mm. They found that the smaller particles gave better WPC flexural strength when softwood flour was the wooden component, and worse when a mix of softwood and steam-exploded beech flour was such a component.…”